


I'll Be a Lion

by odayaka



Category: Gugudan (Band), I.O.I (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Escort!Sejeong AU, F/F, NaJeong, not angst, omg the lack of najeong content on this site
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 13:45:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9387800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odayaka/pseuds/odayaka
Summary: Rose, this is a field where wolves roam.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i cant believe theres no najeong fic on this site,,, i gotta remedy this (with my shitty writing)
> 
> who to blame for this one shot: giriboy's take care of you (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo-pzjI1qLY)

Liquored 11 p.m minimizes the distance between the two, but it’s mostly the low ceiling, the flickering neon lights, and the unnecessarily huge stalls of the restroom that edge them closer to each other, much to Nayoung’s dismay. A step into the cramped room and she finds Sejeong’s presence loud and clear; fixed hair, quick fingers reapplying delicate lipstick, color a fragile red. In the restroom of a local go-to bar, Sejeong reconstructs herself after a raunchy get-together and a couple of politely downed glasses.

Nayoung only gulped an insanely miniscule amount of beer herself. “Leaving so soon?”

Sejeong peers at Nayoung’s own reflection in the mirror, and there blooms a spent smile. “Got a job to do. Bills are coming home, our mailbox’s probably swamped with them already.”

She turns to the sink, turning the faucet on while Sejeong busies herself by putting her things back into the bag, movement robotic and it speaks of worn routine. And she washes her hands, or at least pretends to, because there’s nothing to wash away. Maybe. The guilt sticks on, but it’s invisible to the naked eyes and invincible to the water’s torment. “I’ll drive you there,”

“No need. He’ll pay for my cab like usual.” Sejeong says, and she hums as she packs, and the moment Nayoung looks up from her pristine clear hands, Sejeong’s already the brightest thing in the dimmed room.

 _Like usual._ Her throat constricts when she’s about to say anything, a warning maybe, or an anguished _stop,_ but nothing comes out and Sejeong bids her farewell and she’s a statue made of withering marigolds and silver, silver, a consolation prize for those who finished second, for people who are always a second too late.

Nayoung hates herself, regrets a lot, but at the same time, she harbors a fair share of hatred towards Sejeong as well for making her care _too much_ – pretty much a quaint mix of the three. She washes her hands again. A third round of it. Her skin begins to wrinkle.  
 

* * *

  
“I can’t believe you _really_ came all the way here to pick me up.” Sejeong says, body bent to level with the rolled down window. “So touched. Honored. I feel—“

“Get inside, people gonna honk at me!”

Sejeong laughs her usual addictive laugh that Nayoung can’t imagine ever getting tired of and she slips into the car. Into the usual seat, right to the driver’s, buckling the belt with the exact usual precision, humming a tune stolen straight from the radio as she relaxes, as per usual.

Nayoung takes off, and to this very second, Sejeong is still uninformed of the destination, but it’s a semi-routine that the latter has probably grown to trust, that Nayoung no longer finds the need to lacquer the trip with any sugarcoating. Usually, it’s a café isolated from the many mainstream, located somewhere in the outskirts of Seoul. Sometimes, it’s a quiet park with public telescopes and guesting sparrows. Though, it’s November, and Nayoung opts for something warmer.

“Where are we going today?”

“Somewhere warm, maybe,” Nayoung recalls the sharp-edged 5 p.m wind, and how it might as well could tear skin, “do you have all day?”

“The night?”

“Yeah.” Nayoung brakes as the light signals her red. “Maybe a bit of sight-seeing? Then a warm dinner? Seafood, I guess?”

Sejeong hums louder, sounding an approval. “Sounds yum. I don’t think that takes a whole night though.”

Nayoung finds her eyes wander to the far horizon as the rest of the world blurs. Idle fingers begin to tap onto the steering wheel in slow, mesmerizing rhythm. Thoughts come pirouetting in and out. “How about we drink? A little? We didn’t get to down much during the get-together days ago. You had to leave and I had to drive some slackers home.” She adds, last minute, out of focus. “Sojin can’t really handle her drinks, and, and Haebin drank a whole _gallon ‘_ cause she just went through a messy break up, and,”

“Dinner’s fine, but not a drink.” Sejeong’s sigh translates to something forlorn. “I’m _booked_ tonight.”

  _Booked_. Nayoung abhors the implication. “Already?”

“Offers kept coming in, and I _kinda_ really need the pennies.”

Nayoung snorts at Sejeong’s shameless entendre. She finds even that act _tiring_. “Disgust.”

Sejeong breaks into a chortle this time, then sinks deeper into her seat, then ends the laugh with a huge, pushed sigh that could hollow out the space behind her ribs. Then, she strains against her seat belt as she leans over to Nayoung’s side. “Hopefully we’re still up for dinner?”

And only then when she’s granted with the front row ticket to Sejeong’s blinding smile that Nayoung notices, as she hovers a thumb over a rather hidden band-aid near the base of her neck. And again, Nayoung’s throat constricts as she struggles against the need to inquire and the fear of knowing, and she catches an airless breath, and what she could manage is, “What, what happened—“

And Sejeong manhandles her shoulders and turns her over to the wheels, and Nayoung sees the light now a glowing, mocking green. Nayoung hits the gas before they’re rioted with honks, and Sejeong talks about a recent rumor going around her department, and questions remain unanswered, beheaded before it’s even worded. The band-aid (mostly hidden by Sejeong’s hair that cascades a little past her shoulders), hushes her to keep her jaws shut, and Nayoung is way too exhausted to rebel.  
 

* * *

  
Kim Sejeong is a lot of things. To many, she’s a role model, a hard-working optimist with a smile the shade of 100 Watts. To some, she’s the kind of friend they will remember to their midlife crisis, that one supporting bud who speaks lots of one-liners that catch on. To some, a fraction smaller than the previous “some”, she’s a first love, or maybe second, or third, but nonetheless, she’s that one love that’s unattainable, and hardly forgettable. To Nayoung, she’s another lots of things: an inspiration, a close friend, a first and last love, maybe.

Sejeong is also another set of things. By day, she’s the ever-popular darling, a studious, friendly, approachable (and a long grocery list of every positive traits possible) kid of Hanyang University’s Accounting and Tax department. By night, she moonlights as a female escort under an agency Nayoung doesn’t feel like naming. Something something red, something. Even the slightest thought of it leaves a mildly bitter taste on Nayoung’s tongue.

Nayoung, now in a comfortable t-shirt and pants for comfortable sleeping, flops down to her bed and lands on her back. And her mind wanders.

To Sejeong, and her _peculiar_ job that will never leave her evenings unruffled as calls keep coming in. _“I’m high on demand,_ ” she once said, and at the time, Nayoung bitterly joked back, “ _Always the most favored, be it in your campus or not,”_ and Sejeong’s laugh wasn’t genuine at all, at the time, because they were both spent souls atop the roof of the house Nayoung shared with her brother.

Her mind wanders some more, to Sejeong and and the first time she confessed to Nayoung that she had been working as a female escort for quite a while (a month, which wasn’t much, but that still got Nayoung horribly perturbed). At the time, Sejeong honeycoated the reveal by poking a fun at it, _“I guess I’m a literal heartbreaker now. Or is it heartkiller? What’s the nick again? Back then in high school?”_ and Nayoung, at the time, couldn’t even muster the will to fake-laugh. A heartbreaker she was—she is. A thousand hearts bent, among them hers. There was still a lot of room for more.

Taking some sharp turns even deeper into the memory lane, Nayoung finds herself in one evening just some evenings past The Reveal. At the time, Sejeong miraculously had the evening to herself. Perhaps, at the time, she wasn’t included in the exclusively curbed _customers’ picks_ list. Nayoung was off her game, being inebriated she was, but alcohol brought the honesty to the table. _“Why the need to work like_ that _?”_ came out harsher than intended. At the time, Sejeong’s defense thawed down for a moment, that one moment where her smile was askew and her voice trembling along the uncouth confession, “ _Nobody asked to be born in a dirt poor house. I never wished for that useless fucker of my father to leave us. My brother never dreamed to be a white-collar insurance worker that gets paid shit. My mother never wanted to be_ that _with hospital bills pricier than all our worth combined,”_ and she sobbed against Nayoung’s knuckle, which she’d pulled close to her reddened nose, “ _I don’t want to do this either.”_

Things would have been easier if she could help Sejeong’s crippling financial problems, but she doesn’t want to count how many times the girl has refused her help. Something about pride. And how she’s still able to bring the food to the table herself.

At every polite and carefully articulated “ _no_ ”, Nayoung always pretend she’s taking it in stride.

At every Sejeong’s “ _things will get better”_ , Nayoung tries hard to suppress the urge to crash Sejeong’s rose-tinted glasses in her hand. She’d even bask in the feeling of the glasses wreckages acupuncturing her skins into ugly, blood-marred holes.

At the same time, she knows Sejeong knows that no one’s supposed to interpret the “ _things will get better”_ in such an optimistic manner.

 _“Isn’t it it tiring, working like this?”_ She once asked.

 _“It is, but just for the first 21 days.”_ Sejeong once answered.

_“And then?”_

_“And then I’d get used to it.”_

Tonight too, Nayoung checks on her phone, finds herself scrolling for Sejeong’s contact, and dials it even though she knows it’s all futile.

Sejeong’s voicemail answers her. Nayoung glances at the clock and it smirks down at her while showcasing the obvious 10 p.m, telling Nayoung that it’s way too early into the night.

Tonight too, Nayoung loathes herself the most.  
 

* * *

  
“Alone, sad, and probably lonely,” Mimi leans over the island counter, and had it been another day, Nayoung would’ve been already making fun of her stretched body as she struggles with her inane lack of height.

Nayoung whines back as she wheels her stool back a tiny bit, just enough to avoid having Mimi’s smug grin too up close. “Worry about your business instead, it’s tanking!”

Mimi pulls back with a dragged hum. “Not too much… I mean, things used to be far worse. At least tonight I have you and that oldie over there, Table 5. Months ago, my pops won’t shut up about our old family bar growing moldy, so I came into the picture and revamped it into a retro bar instead.” The vertically-challenged grown woman drives her hands to her hips. “The revamp was costy, ya know! The wallpaper! Not every day you can find a red-orange _this_ retro with _this_ much class. Took me a whole day of browsing.”

Nayoung side-eyes the retro-looking Marilyn Monroe poster framed on the far right wall, spoken in the language of The Roaring 80’s pop art. “You bought that in a garage sale!”

“Psh, defamation of name—“

“I was _there_ with you.”

Mimi sighs. “Touché. This is why you’re alone, sad, and probably lonely.”

Instead of retorting, she crosses her hands atop the counter table and lets her gaze wanders to the many selections of booze lined up neatly behind Mimi. Anything to distract her from fishing her phone out of her jacket’s pocket. Anything to distract her from phoning Sejeong, because it’s Saturday night, and Sejeong is almost _always_ busy during the Saturday night. A lot of high-end social events seem to take place during the measly hours.

Sejeong also once said, “ _Sunday is family day. But the night before? It’s the time where the mister finds himself a missus. Sometimes just for a dinner with an attractive company. Other times…_ ”

Nayoung cut off the last bit of the recount.

“Your order, ma’am?”

“Up to you.”

“Something for you to mull over, then.” Mimi goes to work her magic, and Nayoung spends the remaining minutes till her drink’s served by idly checking the many bottles of boozes lined up, wondering whether they’re there just for show, to show off the bar’s credibility, or maybe people _do_ order those expensive top-shelvers.

Mimi comes back into view and serves her a lowball glass.

Nayoung takes a hold of the glass, shaking it a little without throwing off the mixture inside. “What does this potion do, mother fairy?”

“Just a drink for you to mull over. Godfather, on the rocks.”

“Um, sounds like it’s too edgy for someone that’s alone, sad, and probably lonely…”

When she looks at Mimi, her grin is no longer smug. It’s barely there, but Nayoung understands the sentiment. Then Mimi says, “It’s good ‘ol Scotch with amaretto. It’s also slow-sipping. Imagine yourself in Don Corleone’s shoes – ya know, the guy from The Godfather movie – and imagine sipping it as you think and consider and reconsider.”

“I don’t want to think about anything tonight…”

A sigh, and then, “But Nayoung, _dearest_ Nayoung, not when she _wants_ you to keep her in mind, even in the backest back of your mind.”  
 

* * *

  
Nayoung drives them through the needling wind of a rather cold October. Today, Sejeong is much quieter, but not quite eerily, so Nayoung lets her drown in her own thoughts, and instead, makes a change of plan, and opts for a quieter destination. Somewhere without the crowding of insufferably loud motor roars.

There isn’t much of that in the bustling Seoul, but Nayoung is certain Yanghwa Bridge could fill their night lights longing needs. It not only overlooks the Han River and parts of Seoul that sprawl beneath, but the night’s pulsing beats nestle against her knuckles as she drapes her arms around the railing. Beside her, Sejeong leans her back on the railing as she whispers into the blanketing night sky, “I’m tired.”

Nayoung whispers back, softer, “Of what?”

“Oh,” an exasperated laugh later, Sejeong finally continues, “I don’t know where to start. It’s not even _that_ busy of a week. It’s not the end of November with the loads and loads of assignments, it’s not finals time. What’s happening to me?”

Nayoung unlatches herself from the railing and turns the upper half of her body towards Sejeong and just _sees_ Sejeong, and Sejeong lets her, but not when Nayoung’s eyes land on the spot where a band-aid had been tacked onto just a week ago. Sejeong cocks a quizzical eyebrow the moment Nayoung thumbs that bit around the base of the neck, and she shudders.

“What happened?”

“Are you asking me or,”

 _Well, your neck is a part of you_. She keeps it to herself. What comes out is an unconvinced frown instead.

Sejeong laughs, and subtly shoos her hand away by holding it in hers, but Nayoung wouldn’t notice as she’s too busy calming the rioting beats thudding against her ribcages as her hand’s motioned to Sejeong’s cheek, as Sejeong’s lips graze her bulging blue vein stretching around her wrist. “Things have been a little rough for me.”

 Somehow, Nayoung doesn’t want to know the sick truth behind Sejeong’s answer. It’s not just words molded out of thin air. It’s not just some half-assedly strung answer. It is part a confession, part a cry for help (or that of a wounded gazelle – Nayoung isn’t sure anymore). Nayoung tries a smile to mask her prayers. For the wound that’s healed and the one laced deep inside, however internal.

And just like that, Sejeong stays in the forefront of her mind.  
 

* * *

  
Eleven in the p.m. Some Saturday night where Nayoung lost track of the date. Not because her calendar hides itself, it’s just that she’s been doing less remembering, more forgetting.

Five minute past eleven in the p.m. She dials a number she’s grown to memorize.

Sejeong’s voicemail answers back and it’s ironic how she sounds the happiest and most genuine in the voicemail she’s recorded at least a year ago, so Nayoung lets all the two hundred and six bones in her body fall to in place and she listens, and when it ends, she dials again, but this time without expecting for an answer.  
 

* * *

  
Her conscience takes a backseat to the anger-knitted personality that’s a witchcraft of her many, many downed glasses. Under alcohol’s mercy, she’s blearily aware of her own self throwing a stool onto a cowering man’s crouched figure.

She hears Mimi running from behind the counter to her side. She hears the just as much influenced man balking back at her violent lash out. She practically could _hear_ the stares of the few present patrons.

Her head is too foggy for self-control. A few headlights pop and dim and out of focus. As headache seeps into her hazed head, Nayoung struggles with her reasoning to keep herself slightly sane. She doesn’t fight back when Mimi holds her body back.

It was a fine evening. Very much so. She ditched her major batch’s get-together for a much needed drinking solo. Everything was fine until some drunkard sitting three stools away from her began to churn out a woman-hating speech, evident of heartbreak. Contents censored for the appalling amount of misogyny. Nayoung could remember bits and pieces of the man calling the female species with pejorative terms, synonyms of slut, right down to bumpkins’ slangs of it. And _those_ hit Nayoung too close home, even when the madman’s maddening speech didn’t have anything to do with her.

“She’s not,” her breath hitches, her throat burns, and her lungs beg her to stop, “she’s not a fucking _slut_ ,”

“Nayoung, c’mon, zip it!” Mimi tells her. Maybe. Maybe it’s not even Mimi. It might be her conscience.

Maybe.

“I’ve looked up _escort_ in a fucking dictionary and,” her throat acts up again, “—okay, so, like it’s… oh… some sorta umbrella term for prostitute… or something,”

“Crap, Nayoung, you’re making zero sense right now…”

And the burn consumes her whole, starting from her eyes. They sting, but even more so when the tears come out. “Sejeong doesn’t deserve any of this shit,”

“Okaaaay that’s the alcohol doing the talking, folks! No slut or prostitute or some kinda social escort named Sejeong, or, ya know—shit Nayoung stop shovin’ me—Kim Sejeong, no nothing, guess I gotta close down early…”

She can feel herself on a highway to blacking out. Her vision saturates into red, orange, with some maroon befitting of the bar’s theme, and there is an apparition of Sejeong standing in the far end of the bar, and she realizes, the madman is never the drunkard, the madman—madwoman, madhuman—has always been _her_ all along as she attempts to reach out to tell the lifelike blur of Sejeong to stay home during all the upcoming Saturday nights.

Sejeong—or, air-quote, “Sejeong”—disintegrates into particles of dust and light. And if it’s not for Mimi’s firm grip on her, she, the madwoman who’s so terribly in love with a prostitute, would’ve crumbled along too.  
 

* * *

  
Hospital visit dishes out twice the pain when it’s done solo, so Nayoung third-wheels the pale mother and even paler daughter. They’re talking, but Nayoung isn’t really listening as she stands behind Sejeong, who’s seated by her mother’s bedside while fiddling with her mother’s thinning hand. (Nayoung refused the offer for the other seat just in case she has to gather Sejeong’s bits and pieces back to a semblance of the Sejeong the world knows all too well; she looks like she might break in any second, hospital visits do this to her.) This is the most fragile Sejeong out of the other fragile Sejeongs; this is the Sejeong with her wounds open and lipstick the color of dying white. This is the Sejeong that’s been on a standstill since forever. The most delicate. The quietest also, as Nayoung listens to the ticking of the second hand in between the lines.

“Sit, Nayoung dear,”

The weak voice of Sejeong’s mother finds its counterparts in Nayoung’s almost muted, “It’s alright. I’d rather stand.”

She’d rather stand and watch the two conversing in a threadbare manner. She’d rather be the audience to the most genuine of Sejeong in the present.

When it’s time for them to go, the moment they step out of the room for the iodoform-heavier hallway, they’re back to their usual rhythm of the artificially bright Sejeong and the grumpy Nayoung. Sejeong is back to being a rose amidst a pack of wolves. Only this time, Nayoung’s willing to be a lion.  
 

* * *

  
“ _Happy birthday to the birthday girl that didn’t even bother to reply my long ass happy birthday message!_ ”

The end of November is summarized by a mountain load of assignments, a mountain load of things to cram for the impending finals, and tons of torn communication as everyone else’s abandoned for books and reports and stolen notes. Nayoung had to mine her phone out from a pile of messily scribbled notes just to answer Sejeong’s third call (the other two she purposefully missed).

She tries to sound like she isn’t irked by the interruption as she channels her annoyance to a paper crumpled under her toe instead. “Thanks… sorry, I’m kind of swamped right now…”

“ _I get, I get. You’re always busy in the year-end._ ”

“Yeah. Very much so. Busy, busy, busy.”

Silence over the line is less a silent, more of a grainy pause with hints of things left unsaid lurking under the static undertones. It’s the kind of silence that demands to be broken.

Sejeong’s voice is much smaller that Nayoung has to strain her ear to catch, “ _Can I come over?_ ”

“I’m kind of tied up today…”

“ _Please? I know you’re real tired from all those assignments, but they can be a real drab without some breaks in-between you know? I’ll come over and cook us some warm dinner. Tell me all of your mother’s recipes._ ”

Sejeong’s _please_ is way too soft and honeyed for a mortal to refuse. Part of her is retching. “How about this Saturday night?”

This time, there’s a different kind of pause. The kind that’s a calm before a hail storm.

“ _Well, I’m never available on Saturday night._ ”

“Not even for a friend?”

An exasperated sigh blows to life, but not even the line could muffle the effect it has on Nayoung. “ _Nayoung, he’s the usual. I can’t really bail out on this one._ ”

“I bet he’s some ugly geezer with body hair the volume of Kalimantan forests.”

“ _You’re not far off, but this is my bills speaking._ ”

“How much do you need?”

“ _God, we aren’t going through this again_.”

The firmer Sejeong’s voice gets, the more Nayoung feels like pushing her off the edge. She’s feeling brave today. “I’m trying to help a friend, a stubborn one.”

“ _That friend doesn’t feel like getting that kind of help, though she’s still up for warm dinner together as long as it’s this evening_.”

“I don’t want you to see him.”

“ _Me neither, but again, this job’s doing a crackerjack work in paying the bills._ ”

“Why won’t you let me help?”

“ _Reasons._ ”

“Why the persistence?”

“ _Because,_ ” Nayoung could imagine gasps of air whistling into Sejeong’s lungs as a frown threatens to fracture her usually picture-perfect smile, “ _again, because, this is my business, and not yours, and I’d prefer you keep your bum away from my_ things, _because…_ ”

Nayoung doesn’t interrupt her. She lets the pause expands.

“ _Because, to me, I’m living two different lives at once. And you, Nayoung… you belong in that life where everything’s alright. Where I’m just an accountancy major kid trying to quickly graduate so I can get my hands on a stable job. I treat you as my—lifeline to normalcy. Don’t even think about crossing to my other life. Now that I’ve told you about your place in my life, feel honored yet?_ ”

Nayoung rises to her full height, kicking the wheeled desk chair behind to a short durational spin. With the line still on, she hastily moves to grab a denim jacket she should’ve thrown into the laundry at least a day ago. “Very. Very honored.”

“ _Okay_ ,”

“Are you home?”

“ _Yeah. Why?_ ”

Nayoung juggles having the phone squished between her cheek and shoulder as she puts on the jacket, since the wind blows like invisible guillotines outside, even though she intends to drive there. “Don’t go anywhere.”

“ _Are you coming over, like, after telling me I can’t crash your apartment?_ ”

The engine roars to life. Nayoung visualizes all the roads and turns she needs to take to the apartment Sejeong and what’s remaining of her family lives in, its dull-colored paint, and the corroding _Kim_ nameplate. “Maybe I’m coming over, maybe not… are you up for surprises?”

“ _Not today._ ” Sejeong adds a laugh, not her usual sugared one, but this time, grueled, and perhaps porridged.

This might be the first time Nayoung is driving so fast, like she’s in a race against the hour hand and a short-sprint against the second hand. Nayoung grits her teeth when she answers, all while she’s practically jumping out of her car to an ATM cubicle. “Alright, but stay there.”

“ _I don’t feel like seeing you now._ ”

“Alright, but stay there. Imperative.”

“ _Are you trying to push my buttons?_ ”

Never in her life she has this many cash in her hands. The invention of banking and credit cards make it almost unnecessary to keep money, especially in huge quantity, in its utmost physicality. To the people who catch her when she step outside of the cubicle, perhaps she looks like she’s smuggling cash, especially judging from the urgency in her steps.

Back in the car, she hears Sejeong, “ _What the_ hell _is up with you today, Nayoung?_ ”

Madwoman Nayoung can’t answer, instead, she hits the brake.

“ _Don’t think I haven’t noticed. You’ve been acting real off these days – are you menstruating? What kind of stomach cramp would make you throw a fucking chair onto some drunk man?_ ”

Of course Mimi would rat on her. That snitch monster.

“ _What the hell, Nayoung?_ ”

Second to last turn until the Kims’ flat.

“ _What did I do?_ ”

She slows down, remembering that the area has a lot of children in particular, in a pack or a platoon. There’s a people park nearby, after all.

“ _Tell me… was it my fault?_ ”

The engine is put to sleep and Nayoung slams the door shut. The sky, however, makes its presence clear; a lightning flashes, the dimming blue dims even more, and the fleecy clouds color themselves grimer.

“ _Nayoung, please,_ ”

To the door she raps her knuckles, and it clicks open half a beat later, and this is one of those especially rare times where Sejeong looks so distraught, bangs swept aside but the top of her head resembling that of half-matted grass.

Nayoung invites herself in, wordlessly, even. Sejeong’s gaze follows after, but not her entire body.

“Come here,” in front of the dining table, the center of the kitchen, she starts.

“What for?” Sejeong answers, skeptic, perhaps.

“I want to make a deal.”

Sejeong’s steps are wary, but she occupies the other side of the table nonetheless. Nayoung doesn’t have the heart to look at her eyes. “Nayoung,”

From there on, Nayoung stops with the restrain but not with the whole avoiding Sejeong’s eyes gait, and she throws the money she smuggled fresh from her back account and it makes a diabolical dulled thud, and Sejeong’s disbelieving stare is suddenly the loudest thing in the room. The tense withholding all their joints paint the scene strident and angry. And when Sejeong looks up at her (eyes unforgettable and lower jaw slightly hanging), Nayoung musters all the insanity left in her and say, “How much for a night?”

“I—Nayoung, _what_?”

“How much,” Nayoung struggles, and she hears parts of her breaking, (along with Sejeong’s, maybe), “for this Saturday night. I don’t know your rate.”

It looks like the wind has been knocked out of Sejeong. Either the wind, or the heart. “Fuck off, Nayoung.”

“How much did that bastard promise you?”

“It doesn’t work like a fucking auction.”

There’s a violent kind of turmoil inside Nayoung, and the burn creeps up to her eyes. Or maybe it’s the contrasting mix of cold anger and hot tears welling up there. But she realizes, she has too far gone, as she drops her credit card on the table, on top of the hilling bucks. “I’ll pay double. Triple, even. Quadruple. Quintuple. What’s after quintuple?”

Usually, silence filling the space between her and Sejeong is comforting. Thought-provoking, sometimes. But not this time. It almost feels like the silence has taken another form of hands, surreptitiously snaked around her windpipes as it tightens. Certainly not just on Nayoung, if the hurt flashing across Sejeong’s eyes is of any indication.

Right now, Sejeong is not just an open wound, but one torn and left to rot under the compressing air.

Sejeong’s voice makes it seem like she’s a poke away from breaking into shambles; shaky, like it’s just a second away from wrecked into heartful sobs, “Fine then. Two can play the game.”

To Nayoung, the face Sejeong makes is nothing short of monstrous. There’s raw hatred open for Nayoung to stomach. There’s the way Sejeong’s lower lip trembles for Nayoung to fault it to herself.

Sejeong and the tears that begin to stroll down her hollowed cheeks rupture the prolonged silence. “Just message me the time. Someone from my agency will drop me off at yours.”

“No, I’ll just pick you up.”

“Okay.”

Another silence. Nayoung stays unmoving, even when the Not Madwoman part in her begs her entire body to erase Sejeong’s tears clean.

“Now, Nayoung, please leave,” it’s Sejeong’s sobs, it’s the sobs that tear Nayoung apart and now she, too, is an open wound, “please leave before I…”  
 

* * *

  
“ _Any dress-code for tonight?_ ” Sejeong messages her.

“ _Just dress comfortably, think of it like a date between you and me”_ is her reply.  
 

* * *

  
Sejeong slips into her car, dressed following the agreed dress-code. Something comfortable, but still thoroughly dressed, like one of those more important dates. Nayoung regrets not adding “genuinely” somewhere in the message regarding the dress-code.

“Evening,” Sejeong greets, belt buckled and smile the surest. It doesn’t look like the smile Nayoung has grown accustomed to, but she understands, this is the reality of Sejeong’s other life. She, an intruder, has no right to complain.

She replies Sejeong’s with her very own, “Evening,” that sounds far less hollow.

“So, where are we heading tonight?” Sejeong sounds cheekier tonight. Maybe that’s the safe persona she’s adopted for her younger clients. Are there much of them? Billionaires of age less than 40?

Nayoung captains the steering wheel as she sets her driving to a cozy pace. The radio’s set to an FM that plays jazz in particular. Isn’t Jazz romantic? “I haven’t eaten. Have you?”

Sejeong’s laughter hovers over ringlets of sassy sax. “You’re _way_ too rigid. Think of it like a date between you and me.”

Nayoung steals a quick glance her companion for the night, but however quick, she could still catch Sejeong’s perfectly-timed wink. Very practiced. Eleven out of ten for the effort. “How am I supposed to act?”

“Act like Nayoung,”

“Nayoung isn’t here with us today. She won’t pay anyone for a company.”

“True,” Sejeong sighs, then takes off to a string of friendly topics, like the weather, pop culture, and recent issues among the society. Basically topics that are easy to latch onto. Nayoung finds the light conversation at the very least comforting. It reminds her of times where she and Sejeong could drive freely into the night, even though at the time she doesn’t have a license. At the time, Sejeong isn’t as structured either, and she isn’t as molded with make-up as she is in the present. Things used to be a tad bit different.

Sejeong’s voice diminishes into a temporary quiet the moment Nayoung leaves the sub-main streets for the neighborhood area. A block of big-sized homes and fortresses of bricks and lacquered fences. Then, her escort tonight speaks up, “Wow. Are we really going to skip the dinner and get to the raunchy bits where we bare each other?”

“This isn’t my neighborhood!”

“Kidding. You’re not the type. I _know_ where we’re heading to anyway.” Sejeong sighs. “I don’t think I’m supposed to know my client _this_ well. This one job feels so surreal.”

“Oh ho, am I speaking to the Sejeong that resides in Normalcy?”

It feels like their usual banter. Maybe. If not for Sejeong’s sunless, “Just for the intermezzo. Not anymore.”

Nayoung can’t resist her own frown. “Duly received. Anyway, do you accept roleplays?”

Sejeong hums in consideration. “As long as it’s not too weird… there was one time where I had to play the role of a,” the grimace is evident in her voice, “a _squirrel_.”

 _Squick!_ “It’s not,” Nayoung laughs as she slows down, nearing a bar she intends to park in front of, “but for tonight, you will play the princess.”

“And you, the prince? That’s heteronormative.”

“No!” Nayoung balks back as she pulls on the brake handle. “I’m the other princess.”

“So, we’re both princesses.”

The engine’s put into a nap. Nayoung rests back for a bit to return Sejeong’s eyes on her even though the doors are unlocked now. “Yup.”

“Who’s going to open the door for who?”

Sejeong’s words hang in the air. For a second. Or maybe two. At the third, the two of them rush outside all in the exact same beat, speed-walking to each other’s side. When they meet exactly in the center of the car’s front, they pulsate into laughter that resonate with each other.  
 

* * *

  
The bar is a peculiar one, although very much refurbished, so it fits into the neighborhood just fine. The retro vibes are held together by the red, orange, maroon, and standard “retro” decoratives, along with the very much necessary Marilyn Monroe posters. Add the jukebox onto the pile.

Also, a grinning Mimi playing the friendly Samaritan bartender-slash-owner. “Welcome!”

Sejeong blanches at Mimi’s too eager disposition. “Did you mean _welcome back_?” Then, she turns to Nayoung, and her smile is back in place. “Shall we claim a seat?”

“We’re in a bar, not some kinda ballroom with creepily tall ceiling.”

Sejeong motions to a seat in the corner, near the Monroe poster, but not without leaving trails of laughter. Nayoung follows suit and takes the seat that will have her back on Mimi. She intends to have a _good_ time tonight.

“I guess I should’ve picked a place that got snazzy live music. All this craphole got is that old jukebox.”

Mimi’s voice comes not too soon after. “That thing’s just for the deco! We’ve got decent sound system here!”

Sejeong casually rests her chin on a palm, the other hand has its fingers lightly tapping to the beat of some 80’s sleeper hit Mimi plays for them. “But, aren’t you starving?”

“Quasi-starving,” Nayoung turns her body slightly to the back, “something light for two, please.”

Mimi has a mischievous eyebrow angled, “For lovers?”

And Sejeong pitches in, “For princesses.”

As Mimi gets to work, Nayoung attempts a conversation. According to Mother Google, that’s what the clienteles do. “Can we even dance to this? We both can’t dance for shit, we’re only going to shame our grandmas.”

She expects an answer, but Sejeong one-ups her by slithering out of her seat with a hand stretched towards her, inviting. “Only one way to tell,”

And Nayoung takes her hand, and accepts her invitation even with her supreme lack of deftness in anything involving dancing, and she’s grateful that they’re the lone patrons in the suspiciously deserted bar. Sejeong pulls the entirety of her cranky body to the dance floor and it rankles like a century old household lock mechanism.

Sejeong looks over her, and shouts in a playful voice, “Waltz it, jockey!”

And while Mimi begrudgingly switches the song to something “waltz”, Nayoung takes the time to whisper to Sejeong’s pink-rosed right cheek, “Is Jazz not in your menu?”

“I’m always up for something romantic.”

“No. It’s my back.”

“It’s about us two being sucky dancers, and your creaky back.” When the music starts, tune set into the trademark three four rhythm, Sejeong pulls herself closer, snakes her arms behind Nayoung’s neck, and eliminates the three four of their initial distance.

There’s whistling. She will demand Mimi a discount later for being embarrassing. Right now, she’s trying to fight off the amorous cocktail pounding in her veins as Sejeong slowly leads her to a sway. “Sejeong, um, I think you should lead for real, I don’t want to get us two bamboozled onto the floor.”

 “No one’s leading, we’re both princesses tonight.”  
 

* * *

  
Mimi’s concoctions were light alright, since Nayoung could safely drive them both back to her house. Her brother’s packed out for the night after she promised him a bottle of Bartles & Jaymes. With the house all to themselves, a movie marathon night would be ideal, if it’s not for the fact that it’s already 11 p.m and she’s running out of time. Unless Sejeong doesn’t charge a plus for keeping her awake the whole night.

Sejeong is still inside her bathroom after excusing herself there around fifteen minutes ago while Nayoung hogged her brother’s, though she’s plopped on her bed already and is very much finished in less than ten minutes. _Totally_ not because her system’s messed up with giddiness, nervousness, and the jittery feelings in the middle ground between the two.

So, as time stands it toes waiting for one Kim Sejeong, Nayoung imagines the stars and made-up constellations on the ceiling.

The door then creaks open and Time finally lets up. Nayoung rolls to her other side, facing Sejeong who’s fresh out of shower, clad in a loose shirt and the shortest short she found in Nayoung’s closet.

“How do I look?”

Nayoung rolls back to the other side, not facing Sejeong. “Like you’re fresh out of shower,”

She feels the other end of the bed dips from the additional weight. “Be cooperative! Say that I look _ravishing_!”

Body stilled, unmoving, but Nayoung cranks her head to look at Sejeong, “I’m not gonna _ravish_ you tonight…”

The bed dips further and there’s a shuffling sound. Sejeong has probably lied comfortably on her share of the bed. “It’s not even past 12 and I’m still under your _care_ , so,”

This time, Nayoung turns to her side and face Sejeong in all her ready-for-bed glory. “I don’t think we’ve ever sexed before… I don’t know,” and a giggle slips past her drying lips, “this feels awkward. I can’t play lovers.”

“Oh, we aren’t playing lovers. We’re playing princesses.”

“Are we blood-related?”

“What if we ended up having sex? Do incest fantasies get you off?”

Nayoung imagines her brother – the white-collared sleaze who looks too much like her, thus automatically qualifying him as ugly, “Heck no!”

“Even though you’ve been treating me like some kinda helpless younger sibling,” her escort-friend grumbles, “shocker…”

“I don’t,”

“Then stop sabotaging my work, those geezers put the foods on my table.”

“I paid double for tonight…”

“This isn’t about tonight, Nayoung,” Sejeong looks very much unimpressed, very much broken out of her act, “this—Nayoung, are you _aware_ of how hurt I was when you _bought_ me? How hurt _I am_?”

Head tucked back, Nayoung minimizes along with her next words, “I know. I’m sorry. But I just, I—I really, really don’t want you to see him…”

“Why?”

“For real? You’re asking me _why_?”

“Nayoung, I’m not a fucking cheap whore people pick up from some rundown brothel. Social escorts have limits.”

“Every night,” oh, how her voice runs away at times like this, “at every night where I know you’re _out there_ , I can’t help but imagine you, you _bared_ for those dipshits to see, sometimes they’re even old enough to be your—father,”

“God, Nayoung, why are you crying, geez,”

“And you would still, without getting flustered…”

“You’re a mess,”

Sejeong is right. She wipes the downpour along her face. Another hand joins in, wiping them away in a much gentler manner. Not her own hand. Sejeong stares at her and she’s a glass case of emotions, one that will pour out the moment someone axes it open, however gently.

And Nayoung is willing to be that someone, “I love you, Sejeong—I,”

Her whispered botched confession (botched by the sobs that choke her from the inside) brings the tears out and Sejeong is swallowed whole by a bout of fitful cries and whimpers and anguished sobs, which she dumps onto the pillow, and she vomits a half-intelligible, “You’re not supposed to…”

“I don’t think I get to choose the person I love,”

“Trite.” Still, a fraction of Sejeong’s sobs turns into something rings with giggles as she unearths herself from the pillow and Nayoung sees half of a smile, or maybe half of a half of it.

Still, it instills something within Nayoung. Warmth, perhaps.

“Do you think I could book you every Saturday night?”

“Sure, feel free to go bankrupt.”

“I’ll just use my brother’s card. Will pay him in the future after I land myself a high-paying job with pays that could last me a decade in Norway.”

“Sounds plausible for our future civil engineer if you ask me, but I gotta have to refuse your brother’s bucks.”

There’s a pensive silence. Nayoung finds her face falling again. “How am I supposed to stop you, then… hell, it’s not just the Sat nights. There’s a lot of nights to buy. I feel so,”

“Don’t beat yourself for it,” Sejeong scuffles closer, “sometimes I _do_ long for a prince charming. Someone rich who would take my hand and put the ring on it. Those things don’t exist, and the person I’m in love with, the one I’m willing to spend my old days with, she’s still studying. But she’ll get rich in a few years, so I’m willing to wait. So I believe things will get better, somehow.”

“Really really,”

“God, you’re so childish tonight.”

“I’ve always been whiny…”

“Sejeong?”

“Hm?”

“Do you leave before your client wakes up?”

“Most of the time, yeah. When you wake up from a – you know – the next morning, you wouldn’t want to see the ex-mister beside you.”

“Oh… okay.”

“Why the question?”

“Will you be there when I wake up the next morning?”

The quiet isn’t the kind where the other party mulls for an answer. It’s the quiet where everything else clams up in suspense except for Sejeong’s giggle, and the breath tickles Nayoung’s skin. “Maybe. You’ll have to find out.”

“Engh,”

So, tonight, it’s not sex and passion under crumpled blanket. No tossed shirts. No made-up moans and whines. Tonight, it’s just them sprawled inside out for the other to see. Bared, in metaphor only. There are grazes of knuckles against the cheek, and shallow breathes against the neck, and butterfly kisses, and entangling of fingers, and a toe brushing the other. There’s Sejeong without the red lipstick, artificial smile, and requested getup. There’s also Nayoung with her widest grin and heartiest giggles.

Nayoung asks her if she could hold her closer. Sejeong replies by nodding against her shoulder.  
 

* * *

  
The next morning, she wakes up to Sejeong against her. Things will get better.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for making it to the end!


End file.
